Hospital staff help make whirlwind wedding wonderful

Four days before her wedding, Eliza Lepetich had everything she needed – except the engagement ring. She and her boyfriend, Ian Livingston, had talked about getting married, and he had ordered an engagement ring that hadn’t yet arrived. When Eliza’s father, Jack, went into hospice care at Smilow Cancer Hospital Oct. 9, Livingston suggested they get married there so his future father-in-law could attend. Palliative care staff with Medical Oncology (NP 12) and other YNHH departments – no strangers to wedding planning – worked with the family to arrange the ceremony and reception. Eliza found the perfect white dress in her mother Shelley’s closet; the engagement ring arrived earlier than expected; and on Oct. 13 the couple married in the Smilow Healing Garden. Hospital staff joined friends and family at the ceremony, as Jack serenaded the couple down the aisle. Said Eliza, “The whole time I was thinking about how wonderful it was to have him there.”